


That Teenage Feeling

by kalx58



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Feels, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Rey Needs A Hug, Soft Ending, Teen Angst, Virgin Ben Solo, ben has a minor threat stick and poke, female raaaage, kinda ambiguous ending since they're going away to school but I think it ends pretty happily, past rey/omc, rey is 18 ben is 19, rey's mac (n cheese) hacks, starts as some mild hatesex ends incredibly soft, they are both mad at the world and justifiably so, ugh we have stuff in common ugh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:42:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24992488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalx58/pseuds/kalx58
Summary: Two angry teens on the last day of high school."Rey," a deep voice says. She recognizes it. And then she ignores it, waiting for the water to course through the length of the hose, feeling the beginnings of her good mood start to dissipate.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 40
Kudos: 195





	1. Chapter 1

**Now**

At least the salutatorian doesn’t have to make a speech. Thank god, Rey thinks, climbing off the bus and hoisting her bike off the front rack. She doesn’t know what she’d say to her classmates. She doesn’t really feel anything about high school ending, no nostalgia or sadness. Right now, she’s mainly just frustrated: about the thick weight of the day’s humidity. That she’s not moving as far away as she’d like. The way her hair sticks to the back of her neck as she starts pedaling as fast as she can. The fact that her best friend has plans for that night, plans with an attractive clarinet player, plans she really can’t begrudge, so she’s spending the night of their high school graduation entirely alone. 

She rides up to her house and throws her bike on the grass. At least she’s alone right now, alone with her irritation, without having to sidestep Plutt. He’d asked her to do some yard work that morning. (Who cares that it’s her high school graduation? It’s just another day to him. She'd been surprised when he’d let her stay in his place a day longer than her 18th birthday a few months ago, but then he’d told her he was going to begin charging her rent next week if she didn’t leave by then.) She might as well start on that, she thinks. She walks inside, dropping her backpack with the graduation gown stuffed inside, opens a cold Monster and takes a gulp. When she heads back outside, the screen door bangs in a satisfying way. 

She knows this feeling, this building resentment, and what will soothe it. The yardwork works. To a certain extent. She likes yanking at the weeds, throwing them viciously into a pile. She gets into a rhythm, sweat creeping down her neck from the still-hot late afternoon sun.

She stands ups, wiping her hands on her cutoffs, and walks over to the hose, trying to think of the positive. She’s leaving next week, to live with Finn (and four other people, but whatever) in the city, where, unlike this shitty town, no one will know her background. And maybe tonight won’t be that bad. She remembers she has one last box of mac and cheese in the cupboard. She can rewatch one of her favorite movies. 

She’s dragging the hose back to the bed when she hears it.

"Rey," a deep voice says. She recognizes it. And then she ignores it, waiting for the water to course through the length of the hose, feeling the beginnings of her good mood start to dissipate. 

* * *

**Then**

"Hey," Rey calls after him as she sees him approach his car, parked at the end of her cul-de-sac. (The city calls it a dead end, but Rey thinks her version sounds nicer.) "Hey!" 

He turns when his hand is on the car’s handle. "What." 

She’s only seen him at a distance. In the hallways, far away, a handful of times during the one week of school they’ve had. Or on her street, doing things for her mean, wheelchair-bound neighbor Mrs. Archer, either walking her yappy little dog or dropping off groceries. And okay, Finn was right. The new guy is weird-looking. But, she thinks decisively, taking in his full lips and dark eyes, the aggressive tilt of his nose, all jumbled together in a way that works—weird looking, but hot. In a way that she’d be happy to explore more, if he agrees to her idea. 

His tone isn’t an invitation, and his face is blank, a half-step from rude. But she continues. 

"You go to Ford, right? You’re new?"

He nods, his face shifting. Okay, he’s definitely frowning now. Annoyance starts curling through her. Somebody needs to tell him that just because you’re hot, and look 22 instead of 17, it doesn't mean you can just skate by on your looks and not answer when people are fucking trying to be nice to you.

"Well—ah. I’m Rey. I’m a senior too. Nice to meet you." 

He stares at her. There’s no reason to look so mad, she thinks, irritation twitching under her skin. She hasn’t done anything.

"Ben." 

Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with him? Is he from a town where they don’t believe in politeness or something? She gives him her work smile, even though she wants to scowl back at him. She already hates asking people for things. He's making it worse. 

"So I live there," she says, pointing to her house. "I was thinking, maybe, if you’re down, we could carpool to school sometime since we live by each other? It’s only 20 minutes in the car, but 45 on the bus, so it kind of sucks. I could give you gas money…." She smiles a little bigger, hopeful.

He leans against the car, looking away for a second, and when he looks back, she almost rears back with how nasty his expression is. 

"I don’t live here." He spits it out like she’s insulted him. "I only do stuff for Mrs. Archer because my uncle makes me." His lip curls. "This neighborhood—" he looks around at her street, with cars parked on overgrown lawns, small houses with bars on their windows surrounded by holey chain link fences "—this is my charity work."

The rage floods through Rey, sudden and hot. Her teeth clench, her cheeks flame, her breathing quickens. Everything seems breakable right now. His nose, his car windows, her phone. She hasn’t felt like this in a while, but he’s making her want to—she wants to punch his windshield, kick his tires, throw something, and she hates this out of control feeling that courses through her. He looks satisfied as he gets into his (pukey green, old-ass) Volvo and starts it, watching her reaction. 

She can’t speak, knows that yelling the fuckyou, fuckyou drumming across her brain wouldn’t be enough. And she doesn’t punch people, not anymore. She wheels around and storms away, not wanting to look at him any more. She knows she’s too mad for the perfect response. But she’ll think of it.

When Jake Spellman—blonde, smiley, safe—asks her out a week later, she doesn’t tell him about it. It’s too embarrassing. And besides, she deals with things herself. So she listens as he tells her about the new guy, Ben Solo, whose locker is right by his, carefully tucking away the information she learns. One day, on her TA period, she walks past the parking lot to deliver something to the office, and notices Ben Solo’s car. She feels the weight of her keys in her pocket, thinks about scraping one slowly along the Volvo’s door. But that wouldn’t be enough. So she thinks some more.

A few weeks into the school year, she’s pressing Jake against his locker. His arms are around her and she’s smiling happily up at him. Then she hears a slam next to her. She startles, and Jake puts a hand over her ear, which is corny, but kind of cute.

"You two are so embarrassing," she hears a deep voice say, nearby and mocking. A spark of anger, like the flick of a lighter, ignites at the now-familiar sound. Her fizzy Jake buzz disappears. 

Ben Solo is looking down at both of them—he’s gigantic, it’s obnoxious—glaring at where their arms are wrapped around each other.

"Aw, man, don’t be like that," Jake says. He’s always so pleasant. "You’ll find your own special lady someday." He doesn’t seem to notice how Rey has tensed, how hard she’s glaring at Ben. 

Jake leans forward to kiss Rey on the forehead. "My parents will be gone tonight," he whispers. She smiles back at him absently, distracted by Ben’s hulking, Frankenstein-esque presence. The first bell rings, and Jake unfolds from around her, slapping Ben on the back as he saunters away. Ben recoils. 

Rey doesn’t follow. She leans against Jake’s locker, watching as Ben gathers his books. "Speaking of things that are embarrassing," she says thoughtfully. "I was thinking. I heard your mom’s a senator. And she lives in the city, right? That’s what all the articles say." He’s not looking at her, but he’s paused in front of his locker. 

She twirls a strand of hair that’s fallen from her bun, speaking more quietly. "So why would her only child be living in this shitty town, an hour away from the city? Were you sent away to live here?" 

It’s an imperfect guess, based on reading between the lines of some articles from last year, buried in page six of the Senator’s google searches, but Rey can see that she’s at least partially right. Ben pauses for half a second before slamming his locker shut with enough force to rattle Jake’s. But Rey doesn’t flinch, looking at his face, quickly turning red and splotchy, his eyes a mirror of the hatred she’d felt a few weeks ago. 

If she feels the lightest flicker of unease or regret at the raw fury on his face, whatever deep wound she’s purposefully brushed against—she shoves it away as she turns and walks to class, thinking stubbornly of how he hurt her first, how he deserves to have his insecurities carelessly trampled over, too.

* * *

**Now**

"Rey." 

His tone, always so monotonous, grates against her bad mood. 

"What the fuck do you want?" she says, turning around to look at Ben Solo standing on her lawn. It’s 90 degrees and he’s wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt. Like an idiot.

"Did you bike all the way here from school after graduation?" 

What is he trying to do? "No. I took the city bus and then biked. Can you go away?" 

"Your chain fell off your bike. See?" 

She doesn’t look over. Mrs. Archer is on a cruise. She’d told Rey in a suspicious tone, like she expected Rey to break in and have a party. "Why are you even in this neighborhood? Aren’t you done with—actually, I don’t give a shit." 

The water has finally started flowing through the hose, and Rey grabs the end of it, putting her thumb over the opening to angle the spray as she starts watering. 

"I’m bringing in her mail. And about your bike. Do you know how to fix it?"

"Fuck off." Rey doesn’t think she’s mean, but some usually-controlled part of her always malfunctions when he’s around. He gets to her, and that annoys her even more. 

She looks over at him. Her tone has made his face harden. "Are you sure you don’t need my help? Because I heard Jake broke up with you. He really did everything for you. And I know how much you rely on your bike. " He smirks a little, proud. 

It’s almost impressive how many of her sore points he’s managed to hit in those brief sentences. She wasn’t really surprised when Jake broke up with her a month ago, and she definitely wasn’t all that sad. He’d been a perfectly good-enough boyfriend. He had doted on her, which was nice, until she realized that a side effect was that he treated her like she was made of glass. She missed having sex with him more than she missed him, she’d discovered a week later, the feeling of tiring herself out on someone else’s body, the physical and mental exhaustion that came after. (She also missed talking to his mom, and was sad she’d never gotten her recipe for funeral potatoes.) But still. Jake didn’t have to immediately rebound with Becca, and make out during their graduation ceremony. It was just tacky.

She didn’t realize that Ben even knew they broke up. And of course, she fucking knows how to put her chain back on. She does everything for herself. How does he know that one of the things she hates most is feeling dependent on someone else, and his implication that she needs Jake for anything hurts more than the reminder of their breakup? And of course, there’s the reminder that she’s poor and does, in fact, rely on her bike, a fun flashback to their first encounter. 

Maybe she shouldn’t care. Maybe she should be over it. She’ll be far away from him next week. But, god. The shards of anger from early are still embedded, digging into her, deeper now. She’s mad. Mad that she’s had to put up with so much shit, that nothing is ever easy for her, that she has to work so hard, and she really is a nice person, but she still has this fucking guy taking time out of his day to bug her. Why? Doesn’t he have family to spend the day with? She was the one with no one in the audience at the ceremony. 

They haven't had a real interaction in months. Just the occasional obligatory glare. Well. Except for that weird moment in the counselor's office. She feels her anger uncoil even further. At first she’d wanted him to just leave her alone. But he’s inflamed her mood so much that now she’s almost glad he's here, so there's somebody to push against. 

* * *

**Then**

Ben doesn’t say anything to her after their encounter at his locker, and life goes on. Rey watches movies with Finn, wins some races in track, fills out her college applications. Her clothing reselling business gets a win when, during her TA period one day, she convinces the office secretary to let her take the school’s lost and found to Goodwill. Which she does, but not before raiding it for resellable options. She realizes soon that her and Jake don’t have that much to talk about, but she likes the way his hands feel on her when they’re fooling around, ignoring the way he asks too many pitying questions about her parents and her home life, and seems to like parts of her more than her entirety. (Once after a track meet, she’d realized that one of her feet was bloody. She’d been almost proud, this visceral evidence of how hard she’d worked—she’d won the race. He’d looked so repulsed by her in that moment.)

Ben Solo becomes an angry background presence, in her neighborhood and at school. She tries to ignore him, to classify him as an asshole and leave it there, to not map the size of his hands, or notice the black Xs inked on them. She doesn’t acknowledge how he obviously listens to her and Jake’s conversations sometimes, or wonder about the bags under his eyes, the band tee shirts he wears. 

He slices through her school, sparking rumors and intimidating people. Incredibly, some teachers even look a little scared around him. (Mr. Atkins didn't snap at Ben when he’d yelled "Fuck you" during their spirit day rally, but he always found time to scold her and her cross country teammates for dress code violations.) Rey doesn’t understand it. Is it just because he’s so tall? Or because he’s just so much? Loud voice, sharp features, huge ears, big hair? It’s dumb. He’s just a dick. Not something to fear.

Rey takes it upon herself to ignore the Ben Solo mystique. She stifles an obvious mocking laugh when he delivers an impassioned lecture in government. She refuses to smile when he and a friend skateboard down the halls, weaving around teachers, Ben irritably telling one of the yelling teachers to hold on, one second, as he’d jumped and started grinding against the hallway’s wheelchair handrails. One day, she stands in the crosswalk with her bike, idly talking to a classmate and ignoring Ben, angrily honking and yelling out his window at them to fucking move. And yet, despite her efforts, the school still parts around him. Literally, sometimes: once, he was storming down the hall, with younger students scurrying to get out of his way. Rey refused to join them, and they’d slammed shoulders. 

She listens to the stories that float through the school. He sells the school’s chemistry equipment to drug dealers. He’s much older. He’s a plant from the cops to narc on them. He’s on mushrooms during the SAT. When they have to run the mile in gym, he goes on a run and never comes back. They can’t prove it, but he punched Principal Keegan’s car, denting it after getting suspended for setting a fire during chem. During a mandatory assembly where a local cop lectures them about how smoking weed turns you into a meth addict, someone pulls the gym’s fire alarm and writes ACAB on the wall outside the gym. (Ben shows up late to their next class, munching a donut, a paint pen sticking out of his jeans.)

Rey doesn’t know how much of those stories are true. All she knows is that he seems so angry. It just seems to burst out of him, constantly, in yells and varying levels of rebellion. Why? Most seniors are over it. Even though she tries to forget he exists, she still finds herself wondering what he’s trying to prove. What makes him so mad that he needs to be such a public, obvious fuck up? 

And—Rey is angry a lot of the time. At the fact that her parents are never coming back. At the way she knows exactly how much she’s worth in the world, in the form of the check Plutt gets from the state every month ($613, which always jabs at her. They could have at least rounded up to $615.) At her teachers’ general uselessness. (Once, she’d asked her physics teacher if there were any local companies she could look into for engineering experience. He’d just looked at her blankly.) At the way her track friend Ava’s Martinez’s dad always makes her pancakes after a meet, and how she doesn’t have anyone to do that for her. A lot of things make Rey angry. 

But you don’t see her stomping around school, yelling at teachers about how their history textbooks are racist and out of date and why they shouldn’t have to recite the pledge of allegiance (both of which are true, but why not just grit your teeth go with it, jesus.) You had to pick your battles. You couldn't just break lab equipment when you felt pissed. His anger is on the surface. Rey sees her anger as one of those grotesque creatures that live at the very bottom of the sea, and she treats it as such: something ugly to avoid. 

You had to be reasonable. You had to find the good. The things that got you through it. For Rey: smoking weed and watching movies with Finn. Discovering a new season of Attack on Titan. Spending time with the girls on her track team. (She just doesn’t get why they’re so happy to stay in this town. Maybe if she had something, anything keeping her here. But all she has is a bag of clothes and a hard drive of torrented anime. But even if she doesn’t understand, it’s still nice laughing and drinking vodka out of a water bottle with them on Friday nights.) The feeling of the last part of a long run. The sunset from the water tower. 

Those things keep her sane when yet another person asks Rey if she’s okay. People are constantly doing that. Any whiff of anything—showing up high to English (only once, come on), a burn on her arm from the steaming wand at work, looking slightly bored on a field trip— had gotten her a concerned glance, an awkward sit down after class, to check that her abandonment issues hadn’t overflowed into dangerous territory. Even now, her senior year, her freshman year Spanish teacher still asked if she needs anything when they pass in the halls. 

Rey appreciated it. She guessed. It just sucked, being so visibly pitied, having people knowing the worst thing about you before they knew your name. She didn’t like the feeling of being singled out, the squirmy feeling of someone’s sympathy, how their impression of you was cemented around something she had no control over. She tried to avoid that kind of attention. It was strange how much some people like focusing on her pain. Sometimes, it felt like Rey’s entire life was an exercise in avoiding attention: commiserating teachers, overzealous church moms, creepy men. (How many older boyfriends had the girls at the group home she’d been at before Plutt’s had, guys who definitely knew that they were all under 18?)

It just seems weird, sometimes, that Ben doesn’t get the same treatment. It’s not normal to start a new school your senior year, and there’s a rumor that he got kicked out of his last school. And Rey can’t be the only one who knows about his less than awesome sounding family situation, she thinks. But everyone seems content to let him blaze through the school. No one seems to ever ask if he’s okay. 

* * *

**Now**

She’s not looking at Ben, but he's smirking. She can hear it in his voice. He’s so proud of his stupid dig. 

"Wow, thanks Ben. I really appreciate that," she says, tamping down her wrath into a syrupy tone as she sweeps the hose over the plants. "And I’m so sorry. I forgot to congratulate you. I know that this is a big day for you. I guess the second time’s the charm for passing 12th grade. Who cares that you’re 19? Sometimes we all just need a little more time." 

She looks sideways at his face. His face colors, patches of color appearing on his cheeks.

"Fuck you." 

A vicious thrill snakes through Rey, and the shittiness of this day combines with a year’s worth of buzzing irritation at him, pushing her further. She turns the rest of her body slowly, taking the hose with her, watching as the water falls into a graceful arc onto his head. 

* * *

**Then**

In freshman year, Rey overheard Kayleigh Jensen describe her as "white trash with a fancy accent." After school, Rey had cornered her, shoved her against a locker and punched her. It had felt good for one perfect second, and then she’d been upset and ashamed at herself for losing control. She even started feeling bad for Kayleigh, as she watched the redness crawl across her face and tears start to form. 

Rey had realized then that she needed to get her anger under control, to channel it into other things, to not let it overwhelm her. But now, sitting across from the guidance counselor, who’s calmly telling her that she shouldn't have been surprised to not get into any of the colleges she’d applied to except for her safety school—-that feeling of all-consuming rage comes back. 

"But my SATs were good. I’m in honors classes," she says blankly, still in shock after getting her final emailed rejection earlier that morning. "I’ve run track for all four years. I’m probably going to be salutatorian, unless Amy somehow—"

"I’m sorry, Rey. But a lot of the schools you applied to...they’re extremely competitive. Even if you’re one of the top students at this school—which you are!—many of the other applicants are likely to come from high schools that may be more highly ranked than our school is, due to a different academic environment. Of course, let’s not forget that State is an extremely good school, and quite a value—"

Rey stares as the counselor adjusts her glasses. "So, you’re saying it doesn’t matter how hard I worked. That this place is so bad, I shouldn’t have even bothered applying anywhere except State?"

"Well, I wouldn’t say that," the counselor says, with a tinkling laugh. "Let’s talk about State. Do you think you’ll accept? Or are you planning to stick around? I know you’ve been dating Nancy Spellman’s son. He’s planning to stay local, right?" 

Rey says nothing. She forces herself to focus on something, and stares at the top button of the counselor's cardigan. It looks like the one she’d bought at the thrift store last week for $3 and resold online for $15. 

"We’re all proud of you. You’ve worked so hard, and under such difficult circumstances." And there’s that voice—quieter, lots of eye contact, the stressing of random words—that adults love to use when talking to Rey about her "circumstances." The cardigan had been white. But Rey had described it as cream in the description, and she thinks that’s what had really worked, SEO-wise, and oh god, she really can’t do this anymore—

Rey stands. "I’m sorry," she says, rote politeness taking over as rage starts engulfing her. "I’m not feeling—I think I need to leave." 

"Of course," the counselor says, also standing. "I’ll follow you out. I need to run an errand before my next appointment. And please feel free to come back if you ever need to talk. About anything." 

Rey pauses in the waiting room while the counselor passes. She looks significantly at a box of tissues left on one of the chairs, like she expects Rey to cry. But Rey isn’t sad. Not yet. The part of her brain that tells her that the counselor had just been trying to be nice fades away, and something ferocious stomps into its place. 

When she’s finally alone, Rey takes a breath and looks around the waiting room. Something inside of her feels like it’s breaking. She’s worked so hard, for so long. She’s taken honors classes, volunteered at senior centers, paid for her own PSAT classes with the money from her barista job, figured out everything on the convoluted applications herself, rewritten her personal statements, saved up her tips to pay for her applications—and for what? To find out that it was all for nothing, that working hard and trying your hardest has no effect if you’re apparently from the worst high school in the state, and that the whole thing they drill into you as a kid about if you just try your hardest, everything will work out, is really just a big lie? All she’d wanted was to get far away from here, where everyone knew that she was Rey, The Kid Whose Parents Didn’t Want Her, where she had to pass the fire department they’d abandoned her at every day on her way to school. For years, Rey had pushed herself harder and harder, thinking she had control of her future. But in the end, it turns out that her fate had already been decided for by her parents, and the shitty school system of the shitty town they’d decided, on a whim, to abandon her in? 

She looks down and finds that she’s slowly ripped up her hall pass into a half-dozen strips. She doesn’t feel better. She throws the pieces down onto the ground with as much force as she can, watching them flutter slowly to the ground. That doesn’t make her feel better, either. She looks at the line of chairs in the waiting room, noticing that the one on the end, by the door, is off center from the rest. She kicks it aggressively into place, but the strength of her kick knocks it over, taking the small blue recycling bin with it. 

The thunk it makes when it falls is loud in the silent office. The chair and bin topple over, sending papers everywhere. And then her good-girl instincts, the ones that keep people from thinking she’s a total mess, kick in, and she bends down to gather the scattered pieces of trash.

She's on the floor picking up a piece of someone’s geometry homework when she sees a pair of large black Sambas in her eyeline. (They’re in good condition. She could get at least $30 for them.) She stands, finding herself staring at Ben Solo. It must be obvious what happened, Rey thinks, considering the overturned chair, upended trash can, her red face. She doesn’t know how she looks, but it’s causing him to look at her warily. She’s glad. People always just feel sorry for her. They never fear her. 

The other day, Ben had slammed his book shut in the middle of Mr. Jackson’s lecture about communism and simply walked out of class. Rey hadn’t been there, but Finn had told her how Mr. Jackson had simply shook his head. Like it was okay. Sometimes, Rey thought, it seemed like a fucked-up teenage boy could be scary and obnoxious, and everyone was willing to just put up with it. But a fucked-up teenage girl—even if you were well behaved, but had some tragedy that forever stamped you with the "Watch out for this one" sign—was someone to be watched intently and then tearily pitied or preyed upon, depending on how good of a person you were. 

Rey didn’t want either of those options. She just wanted to be left alone. What would it be like to have people get out of your way instead of having their eyes crinkle with worry, their voices clucking with concern as they asked eupenismistically about her living situation? (Which Rey had learned was always code for: are you being abused? Which, again. Well-intentioned, but it’s fucking humiliating that this is her life.) 

She moves to let him pass, and he picks up the chair she kicked over and sits down. He’s too large for it, and he shifts uncomfortably. He keeps looking at her, his eyes obvious in their study. Like he’s trying to figure something out. She picks up one more piece of paper, and hears a noise. 

If he says something to her, she’ll explode. She realizes that, very clearly, despite her overheated brain. She almost wants him too, wants the excuse to shove against something. Or someone. But as she looks down at him in the chair, a reversal of their usual height difference, her brain scrambles that want, revealing a new scenario. One where she’s pushing against him in a decidedly different way, sinking her hands in that thick dark hair and yanking him against her, satisfying a different kind of physical pull. She blinks. 

"Here," Ben says, handing her a piece of paper. The scrap almost disappears in between his big fingers. He’s still looking at her with that weird curious expression. It feels like he’s scraping something away, and Rey feels a rush of embarrassment that he knows she’s like him, that she was throwing a fit in the counseling office, and she’s mad at herself for the feeling of want she’d had, for someone who isn’t her perfectly fine boyfriend. 

She thinks he might say something else (she’s poised to yell at him, hopes that’s all she’d do) but he looks at her face, and doesn’t say anything. He bites his lip and looks away, and then someone else is walking in, some gray haired man with a beard asking, "Really, Ben? Why always this time of day? You really hate history or something?" in a tired voice and Rey rushes past them both to leave, grateful that practice is today and she’ll be able to run some of this anger away. 

As she steps into the hall, she pulls out her phone to text Jake, asking if his parents are around that night. He’ll understand her sadness—coo to her about it—but not her anger. Life isn’t fair, Jake says to her sagely, when she complains about how expensive everything is, how much she has to do. It always makes her grind her teeth because sure. Duh. But life was a lot more fair when you had two loving parents who paid for new clothes whenever you needed them, and who got you cushy after school jobs working for their friends—not that you really needed the money. (She’ll rant to Finn at lunch later, and he’ll say all the right things. That’s why he’s her best friend.)

Later that night, when she’s in bed with Jake, her hands and feet digging into his back to get him to move faster, harder, so she can stop thinking of how much she’s failed, her mind pulls up the image of Ben Solo’s mouth, his white teeth sinking into his fat red lip.

* * *

**Now**

When Ben’s hair starts clinging to his face, and his clothes begin sticking to his body, Rey puts the hose down, accidentally spraying herself a little in the process. Worth it, she thinks, walking across the lawn to turn off the water. He lets out a growl behind her—"What the—fuck!"—and she can hear him stomp over from the edge of the lawn, moving closer. 

She turns around from the spigot, and he’s right behind her. She doesn't like being near him. Not that she thinks he’ll hurt her—-he seems to reserve his violence for inanimate victims, like lockers and chemistry lab equipment—but being this close to him reminds her of her first impression of him. When she thought they could be something else.

"You can’t fucking do that to people," he says with a snarl, glaring at her, eyes looking her up and down. "What the fuck is your problem—"

"Me! What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re always stomping around, like you’re so entitled, always looking so mad. You think you’re soooooo special, like you’re the only one in the world who’s pissed off." 

Rey looks like a drowned rat when it rains (those warm summer storms, another thing she’d tried to escape, but no, she’s trapped in this state for four more years) but the water just seems to serve as an enhance button for his expressive features. The way his hair is plastered to his face over his big ears makes his eyes stand out, flashing and angry. His nose seems more prominent, his lips redder and larger. It gives her an idea. 

* * *

**Then**

"I think he’s dating someone who goes to OCC." 

"Did you see his feet?" Rey raises her eyebrows as she opens her gym locker. 

"My friend goes to Jackson Prep—in the city—and she said Ben got kicked out for graffiti, so he had to finish high school here. And that someone from her English class had to go to the hospital after giving him a blow job." 

Rey rolls her eyes as she pulls her sports bra over her head. How would that even work. Like, from an anatomical perspective. And she highly doubts someone in community college would want to date a high schooler. 

"He just seems so mad all the time." Thank you, Anna Durant, Rey thinks. 

"Yeah. It’s kinda hot."

"Sam says someone was kicked out of the restaurant for having sex in the bathroom last weekend and he’s pretty sure it was Ben."

"Wait, really? That’s insane." 

"Yeah. And—he was with two girls. So."

If Ben was really having threesomes in Olive Gardens around town, wouldn’t he get kicked out of school? Somehow? 

"That sounds almost too wild." Anna. Always so reasonable.

"Well, Sam saw it. And you know Ben’s older, right, since he’s repeating? He’s going to be 19. So. You know. Older guys..."  
  


* * *

**Now**

"You have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know me at all. No one in this stupid redneck town—" and she hates this town, but it’s not okay when he says shit about it. And she’s mad, but she keeps thinking, and maybe what she’s thinking is a good idea, or maybe it’s impulsive. And her useless, abstinence-only sex-ed class had droned on about how teenage brains aren’t fulled formed yet, and that’s why you shouldn’t trust yourself, but Rey thinks she’s done a pretty good job with her decision making so far. 

There’s a drop of water sliding down his face, and she follows its path as it ends up clinging to his mouth. A second later, it disappears between his large lips. 

"—And everyone else just gets out of my way, but somehow you’re always there, fucking smirking, like you—"

She rolls her eyes and cuts him off. "Oh, blah blah blah. Stop being such a drama queen." She pauses. "This is weird. But do you want to have sex?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Now**

Ben’s mouth drops open. He makes a sputtering noise, like Plutt’s car does when he tries to start it. The potential humiliation might have been worth this response, Rey thinks. 

She raises her eyebrows when he still hasn’t said anything after a minute. 

"You can’t just say shit like that," he says finally, still glaring at her. 

"I’m serious," she says, glaring back at him, trying to maintain her bravado. She looks away, at the fading paint on her house. "I’m in a—a really bad mood. And I know when I feel like this, it’ll make me feel better to either hit something, go on a long run, or have sex. I don’t want to run or punch something. And you’re here. So."

"Thanks." 

Rey clenches her teeth. “Whatever. You can just say no." Some tiny, faraway part of her thought he’d maybe understand. "I really don’t care that much either way." (Which is a lie, because his wet shirt is making the muscles of his chest quite apparent, and Rey has never understood why people always imply that only teenage boys are visual creatures.) 

"No," he says quickly, looking past her. "I’m down. Let’s, uh...have sex." Then he stares at her for a long minute. It feels like they’re still grappling with each other, that there’s still a thrum of tension vibrating between them, and Rey is entirely fine with that. 

"You sound like a serial killer when you say it,” Rey says, because she doesn’t really know how to talk to him about this. Then she remembers something and gives him a look that might be the smirk he mentioned. "I saw you looking at my boobs just now, so I figured you’d be...down." 

He glowers at her but doesn’t say anything. She turns and starts walking, not looking back, listening to his footsteps as he follows her into the house. At graduation, so many girls had been wearing expensive-looking orchid leis. Apparently, everyone but Rey knew that that’s what you got as a graduation gift. Maybe this can be her present, instead. 

"Is your dad home?" he asks when they step inside. She sees him take in the tiny space, the mess. She hopes he doesn’t say something rude and make her regret this. Or, if he does, she could just wrestle him to the floor and do it that way. That could be fun, she thinks, looking at his shoulders. 

"He’s not my dad. He’s my guardian. And he’s working a double until 11." 

She picks up the Monster she’d left on the counter and takes a sip. "You shouldn’t drink that," Ben says. He looks at her, turns away and then back again, his lips in a grim line. "That shit’s so bad for you," 

"Are you always this rude before you have sex?" Rey asks, making eye contact—he stares at her mouth—and taking a deliberately long sip. 

He gives her an irritated look and asks where her bathroom is in a sullen tone. She points him the way, listening to the squelch of his wet shoes, and then takes a sip of water, swishing it around her mouth. She doesn’t actually want to taste like Monster if they kiss. Will they? She’s not really sure how this whole casual sex thing works. 

She’s glad she and Jake lost their virginities to each other. It was a pretty ideal introduction to sex: tender, caring, all that good stuff. She’s excited about sex with Ben for the opposite reasons. He looks like he’ll know what he’s doing. She wants to stop thinking, and she suspects that Ben Solo, with his angry largeness, might be the diversion she needs. She likes how strong and wide he is, and thinks she’ll be able to shove and grab and just...have her way with him, without worrying about feelings, or him judging her if she’s a little rough. 

She walks to her room, and he comes in a few minutes later. It looks like he’s dried himself, or maybe the hot day has already done it for him. He’s too big for her room. He’s too big for her house (which is basically the specs of a trailer, but in house form, which doesn’t keep Plutt from ranting about the goddamn trailer trash in this town when he comes back from the bar.) He doesn't sit down next to her on the bed, instead putting his hands in his pockets and walking around, just looking at her stuff.

"You have a lot of clothes," he says, looking at a pile that might topple over soon. He doesn’t sound friendly. Or seductive. But his tone is neutral, which Rey supposes is a good start for them.

"It’s not all mine," she says. "I go to thrift stores, find the good stuff and resell it. Online." 

"Can you make money doing that?"

"Yes." Prom tickets. Field trip fees. Her books for next semester. "People here love new shit and get rid of nice stuff all the time. So it works out." 

She stares at his back, his big arms and those giant hands as he continues to poke around her room. When she’d thought about this, she pictured them coming together in a slam of bodies, clothes magically disappearing, no awkwardness. She didn't expect quite so many questions about her Poshmark business.

"You're into anime?" he says, examining the Ghost in the Shell poster (the 1995 version, obviously) hanging on her closet door. 

"Yes." 

"Cool." 

"Are...you?" 

"My uncle and I watched all of Avatar when I was a kid. Does that count?" 

"No. That’s Nickelodeon." 

"I watched an episode of Devilman Crybaby and liked it. But that’s it. I’ve been meaning to get more into it." 

She glares at his back. This is ridiculous. Is he stalling? 

"So...I’m just going to start taking off my clothes, if you still want to do this?"

He turns fast. She starts tugging off her shirt, then her pants. Her hands move toward her bralette, and now he’s staring. Goddammit, she doesn’t want to care what he thinks about her body. 

“You’re so skinny, Rey,” girls will sigh at her sometimes. Which always makes her feel uncomfortable, because this is just her body. It’s not like she can control it. And yes, the world says that Skinny Is Good, but boobs are also Good, and she doesn’t have those. She didn’t like watching porn with Jake, the one time they’d done it. The women had body types similar to her, but they’d also had absurdly huge boobs. And she knew they were definitely fake, but they still made her angry, because that combination wasn’t fucking possible, and then she’d ended up feeling bad about her body and the opposite of horny. (She prefers Yuri On Ice fanfiction for her masturbation needs, which is hotter and has fewer opportunities for body dysmorphia to flourish.) She pushes the insecurities away. This is only about feeling good, of enjoying how her body and his interact. Don’t think about the college girl, she tells herself sternly. 

Ben doesn’t seem to be as distracted as she is. His eyes are glued to her chest, and now they’re traveling down to look at her lacy purple underwear, and then they’re lazily meandering back to her face, taking in every bit of skin in between. He’s looking at her like she looks at a Crunchwrap Supreme when she’s drunk, or a finish line that she knows she can get to first, like there’s nothing else in the world more desirable, and now it’s finally within reach. His eyes are wide, and his mouth has drooped open a little. She sees him swallow, and when his eyes meet hers, they’re hungry. Good. 

She cocks her head, confidence restored. "Your turn."

He seems to come back to himself, snapping his mouth shut, a bland expression on his face as he sits down on her bed—her twin had been perfectly adequate for 18 years, but he makes it seem tiny—and starts to pull off his shirt. "You’re so...large," she blurts, sucking in a breath as his shirt comes off, revealing broad shoulders, a squiggle of moles on his back and a pale, defined chest. 

He looks at her blankly, hunching a little, like he can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not. And Rey wonders what those Olive Garden girls could possibly be thinking to give him that impression, because there is nothing in the world she wants more right now than to have that big body pressed up against hers, working its way into her. He takes off his pants, and she can only see a pink flash of what she’s curious about, smacking against his stomach as he finishes pulling off his boxers. 

He settles against her pillows. Rey can finally see all of him, and wow. No wonder he’s scoring Olive Garden threesomes and college girls. She doesn’t have a lot of experience, but even she can recognize that Ben Solo is big. Very big. And, currently: extremely hard. And maybe she should be worried, but instead Rey finds she’s just...eager 

"Holy shit. Your dick is huge," she says, staring. It twitches a little against his stomach. He doesn’t say anything. 

She edges closer to him, but he doesn’t move to kiss her or touch her. Rey’s disgruntled. She wants him to want her, to wrest some kind of reaction from that expressionless face. She wants his impulsiveness, his passion, even his anger. He’d better not be bored. Or is he trying to show her up in some bizarre way by acting so controlled? Bullshit. 

So she crawls over to him until she’s poised above his chest on all fours. Shifting her weight, she takes one of her hands and slowly moves it down her body, over her breasts, down her stomach, finally settling over her cunt. She slides two fingers over her slit, making eye contact with him. She’s already slightly wet, but she expects she’ll need to be more so to take that gigantic thing inside her. She wets her lips, mouth dry with desire at the thought. He’s focused on every move she makes, his breathing loud, his body tense. 

She bends to speak softly, her hair brushing his shoulders. "Is this okay?"

She can hear his swallow—or more accurately, his gulp—and then he tears his gaze from her hand to make eye contact. And this, this is what she was waiting for: big dark eyes, pupils huge as he stares at her with undisguised want, a tongue dipping out of his mouth to lick his lips. She runs her fingers over her slit again, gathering her moisture to rub at her clit, shutting her eyes, enjoying the flicker of pleasure. When she opens them again, he’s craning his head awkwardly, trying to stare at where she’s touching herself, balanced just a few brief inches above his cock. 

"Ben," she says again, noticing how her voice now sounds breathy and silly, but not minding. "Is this okay? Or do you want another position, or for me to—-I could blow you..." There’s a slick sound as she slides a finger into herself. His breathing is even louder now. He looks agonized. He still hasn’t said anything, and Rey hopes he’s okay with this position. She doesn’t want him to just shove into her with that thing and break her vagina before college. 

"No," he says eventually, his voice croaky. "This. Is fine." 

She thinks he’s into it? He’s so hard to read. Maybe he’s jaded from his vast sexual history, and her attempts at seduction are boring. Oh well. She's having fun, at least. 

She lowers down, letting her cunt—basically dripping at this point—rest against the base of him. He closes his eyes as she starts to slowly rub back and forth along the shaft, getting him wet. "But—ah—condom," he grits out.

"Yep, that’s what I’m about to do," she says sweetly. She hops off—she thinks she hears a sharp exhale behind her—and tries to remember where the condoms she’d bought during the Jake era had gone. She remembers kicking them under the bed so Plutt couldn’t find them. She drops to all fours and starts looking, making a face at the dust.

"You’ve done this before." She thinks it’s a question. It seems like he only communicates in a flat monotone or an angry bark. What a way to live. 

Her eyebrows pull together. "Yeah, of course. Are you going to slut shame me?"

“Jesus, you’re so defensive. No. I’m just asking. Also. You have a nice ass." His tone is strangely formal. She’d expected more crudeness. 

"Oh. Thank you," she says, smiling. "And sorry."

She waves a condom triumphantly above her head and tosses it to him. When she gets back on the bed, he’s lying down against the pillows and rolling it over himself, paying a lot of attention to the motion. 

She climbs back over him, and picks up his cock, trailing it slowly up and down her cunt, getting her body used to the idea. It’s a little strange that the first time they’re really touching, they’re getting straight to it, but she's excited. When she puts the tip of him inside her, she thinks they both gasp. She slowly takes him further, letting her body get used to the stretch—because jesus, maybe she should have done some sort of warmup routine before attempting this—and she wiggles a little, shifting on him.

Eventually, he’s all the way in. She's triumphant. She’s so full, almost too much so, but Rey is a runner and used to good things coming with an ache, and any strain is rapidly disappearing, leaving her extremely full and extremely satisfied. She sucks in a breath and looks down at him. He’s breathing hard, looking up at her, eyes big, and he hasn’t started moving yet. Which is polite, she supposes, when you have a dick this big. You probably don’t want to just immediately start jamming it into someone. 

So she starts finding what feels good, grateful that he’s letting her take the time to get used to his size. She begins sliding slowly up and down, and finds that if she shifts slightly, she can get some friction on her clit. 

It’s the physical distraction she’d craved. He’s hot and huge and now he’s inside her. That’s all great. But eventually, she frowns down at him. Why isn’t he moving? Does he want her just use his dick like a sex toy? (Not that she’s ever tried one, terrified at the idea of Plutt finding it.) She’s getting tired, for god’s sake. Her thighs are aching from being shoved across his wide chest, and it turns out that bouncing on someone’s dick, even if it feels good, is a little tiring if there’s nobody to meet you in the middle. She’d wanted the intensity of him stomping across her yard, the way he’d storm through their school’s hallways, his body sweaty and straining the way it had been during their basketball unit in gym (not that she’d ever looked all that closely.) 

Is he always this lazy? Does he always just lay there? Coast on his broad shoulders and mouth and fingers that he hasn’t even attempted to put to good use? Maybe it’s the curse of being so good looking. There's nobody willing to criticize your form because they’re distracted by your face. 

Rey decides to take a stand. For her and all womankind. He already doesn’t like her, so it’s not like she has anything to lose. "Hey," she snaps, stopping her movements. "What’s going on?"

"What do you mean?" His face is twisted into a sneer, but his voice seems higher than normal. "Why did you stop?"

She snorts. "Because you’re not moving. I don’t want to do all the work here. Maybe that’s how you’re used to it, but this is a two-way sex street, and I am getting tired, and expect some. You know. Effort." She pushes at his shoulders. "Put your back into it." 

His eyes twitch and his mouth quivers a little, and now he just looks terrified. "Hey," she says, trying for a gentler tone, and not entirely succeeding. "What’s going on? Do you not like this? We can stop." She straightens, a little sad about the idea of him leaving her body, but there's obviously something off. 

His hands come up and land on her hips, a warm, heavy weight gripping her, keeping her in place. He shakes his head firmly, but doesn’t say anything. 

The way he drags her back down his length to meet his hips—that feels good. She hears a little cry from Ben, more delicate than she expected. She throws up her hands. "See? That’s more like it. But, Ben.Tell me what’s wrong." 

He looks infuriated, but Rey has never been intimidated by Ben Solo. So she folds her arms across her chest, not moving, ignoring the way she wants to start moving on his lap again, meeting his scowl with one of her own. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. His ears, she notes, are turning red.

"I don’t—"

Rey waits. 

"I just. Haven’t done it this way—"

"Like, girl on top?" she says, confused. She doesn’t think there’s a learning curve there, but…

He lets out a strangled noise and opens his eyes, fixing them on the ceiling. "Okay. I haven’t done this before. At all," he says, sounding pained. 

"Oh," Rey says. "Oh." 

"I know you hate me." He’s still not looking at her. "But can you not make fun of me right now." 

"I’m not. I—wouldn’t. I just thought—"

"That someone who’s 19 should have done this already?" he spits out. "And should have graduated high school already?" He lifts his head to look at her, furious. 

"No! Relax," she says, frowning. "Just ...you’re big. And hot. I guess I just... assumed. But it’s not like it actually matters." 

"You think I’m hot?"

"Yeah, of course I do," she says impatiently. "I wouldn't have asked just anyone to do this." 

Ho-l-y shit, Rey thinks. Ben Solo, with the track record, with the big hands, big feet and big dick, big everything, is a virgin. She’s currently in the process of taking someone’s virginity. Ew. That sounds patriarchal and gross. Maybe instead she’s... de-virginitizing Ben Solo? Panic zaps through her. She doesn't feel responsible enough, or tender enough, to be the one doing this. He looks so ashamed and she thinks about how everyone is so scared of him, how his size makes people shrink away from him. 

"Are you sure you don’t want to stop? Like. I don’t know. Virginity is a stupid concept. But do you want to wait to do this with someone you’re dating?" 

"No," he almost yells. And again—it's like his body knows what to do even if his brain doesn’t, because he springs up a little in his vehemence, the motion shoving him deeper. Her eyes flutter shut at the feeling. He groans. 

And Rey realizes that maybe she doesn’t really like him, but she finds she wants this, because—sex should be fun and safe and hopefully kind of mind-blowing, and maybe she can make this good for both of them. And there’s a vain sort of appeal that comes with the knowledge that she’ll be sending him off the world with the impression of her as a sexual savant, that he’ll remember this forever, that she—poor, scrappy Rey, with her taped-together running shoes and Goodwill duvet—gets be the precedent. 

"I want to keep going. If you’re okay with it. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I just...don’t know what to do." He sounds so frustrated. "But I want this. Now. With you."

"Fuck, okay," she says, opening her eyes, seeing him wild-eyed below her. "We can experiment. Let me know if there’s something that feels good. Or bad." 

He nods jerkily. 

"And, Ben?" she says, leaning down to his face. She places hands on his chest tentatively, speaking into his ear. The vulnerability has softened her feelings towards him, she finds, and she wants him to feel better. Less insecure. "I know we’re not friends. But I think I like you better when you’re inside me, at least." 

"Oh," he says faintly. 

She rubs at his shoulders, noticing how his hair is still a bit wet but his skin feels hot. His hands are still around her waist, large and warm, and she likes how they feel. She tries again, lifting herself up and down, relishing the feeling as she sinks back down, the same gratifying fullness as before. Only this time, he shifts his hips up just the smallest amount in short, restless movements that he can’t seem to stop. She moans, enjoying the feeling of him—finally—thrusting up into her, and she sees his eyes get big. 

"So, ah, this feels good," Rey says eventually, gasping as he thrusts even deeper, hitting some part of her that makes her hands tighten on him. 

"What does?"

"That kind of, upward motion." 

That makes him shove his hips up hard, and she’s propelled forward with the force of it. She has to dig her fingers into his shoulders to keep from falling off his body.

"Agh. Not that much." 

His angry expression returns. "Well, I’m sorry I’m not more experienced—" he snarls. She rolls her eyes, slapping her hand over his mouth. 

He licks her palm. He’s so strange, she thinks, grinning down at him. She squeezes around him in retaliation and pulls her hand away. A loud whimper erupts from him, and then he snaps his mouth shut. 

"Shut up. And keep doing that. Just like. Up and down, yeah—but like, roll your hips. Don’t just jam—gentler at first—that feels good.”

She sinks down again, and now they’re meeting each other’s movements like they’re used to it. At one point, he hoists her hips up a little higher—he’s so strong, Rey thinks hazily—and she watches as he stares, entranced, at the sight of him disappearing into her body. “Yeah, like that,” she hisses. 

He keeps pulling her back down like he doesn’t trust she’ll return, chasing her, looking up at her every time a noise escapes her throat. His grip on her hips widens, his fingers spreading to her ass and she likes how much of her those big fingers can caress. 

They’ve found a good rhythm, but he’s still lying flat on his back. It’s a distant journey down to him: his torso is so long that it’s a stretch to touch his shoulders. Or his face. Not that they’re going to kiss. But maybe she wants the option. 

"Do you want to try sitting up?” Rey asks. 

"Oh. Okay."

He shifts, sitting up against her pillows, still holding tightly to her. She moves her legs around him, liking the new angle of his thrusts, and then her arms, , so now her body is completely wrapped around his. It’s intimate. Their faces are inches apart. She wants to kiss that weird-hot face, on his cheek and full mouth and even on the bridge of his large nose.

Rey’s world keeps shrinking. First to them in her small room together, then the intimacy of being on the bed with him, and now her entire focus is their intertwined bodies, the way they’re clutching at each other’s skin, trying to get closer. He’s more confident now, and she feels him experimenting a little, alternating shorter thrusts that make her gasp with longer ones that make her hold tight to his shoulders. He looks blissed out, eyes falling shut at one particularly long thrust, and he tips his head back, grunting in pleasure. Rey rolls her hips, trying to see if she can grind her clit against his stomach at this angle. She can, a little. Cool. 

His eyes fly open. "I felt—fuck. You just got so much more wet. Fuck. That was hot." 

"Yeah," Rey says a little breathlessly, moving faster. "This—you—feel really good." She wants more, raising a hand to play with her breasts. 

“Can I?” Ben asks, his eyes fixed on her hand’s movement over her nipple. 

She nods, and he reaches to gently squeeze one breast, then the other, and it’s like an electric zing through her, the feeling of his hand, and she’s the one surprised and wide-eyed this time, a little unbelieving that his touch feels this good. She lets out a gasp as he tentatively rolls one of her nipples between his thick fingers. The prickly, annoyed heat from earlier in her has melted into desire. 

Suddenly, he groans. "Um. Rey. I’m worried I might—"

"Come immediately?" 

"Yes." He’s gritting his teeth. 

"I mean, I think that’s expected your first time," she says, panting.

"I want to make you come," he says, almost angrily. "What do I—what do I even do." 

"Well—uh, this is part of it," she says, bouncing on his lap, pushing her hair out of her face. She doesn’t have anything as inessential as a headboard so she braces herself with a hand against the wall as he keeps thrusting up into her, a little faster.

"Is there anything else? For you?" 

"Yeah—just. Can you touch my—?”

"Yes. Yes, I can do that. Um. Where exactly?"

"Here," she says, grabbing his hand and moving it down. "Feel—? No. Like. Rub that. There—oh, fuck."

His fingers are a little rough on her clit, but she likes how they feel, because it means that for once it's not her doing this. It’s Ben. She’d thought it would be simple. That they’d be separately charging toward pleasure. That it would be angry. she’d have to do this all herself. But now it’s something else. She can’t get enough of his reactions, every small gasp and instinctive moan. It’s dizzying, seeing just how much he likes this. They’re not in opposition anymore. 

It’s all swirling together now. His breath. Her breath. Her noises—her ah ah ahs when he hits something incendiary inside her—his low, bitten-off growls of, “Fuck, Rey,” almost like he’s annoyed at how good it feels, like he can’t take it any more. 

Soon, it’s what Rey originally pictured, quick and grabbing, impatient shoves and pushes against each other. He’s lifted his knees, so he can keep pumping up into her while touching her breasts and clit, and she sucks at where his neck meets his shoulder. He moans a little (I did that, Rey thinks proudly, he feels that good because of me), a hand flying to rub her other nipple hard, jamming it and rolling in fingers. 

She gasps and then bites down, not questioning the sudden prickle of possessiveness that makes her want to mark him, before sitting up again to shove down on him even faster. He grunts, thrusting in desperate, uneven strokes. She drags her mouth down his neck to lick at the spot she just bit. He smells good. 

The bed squeaks, the mattress thumps. They’re so loud in her small house. 

Her hands have ended up fisted in his soft hair. She’s unconsciously tightening her grip with every motion of his hand over her clit, and Rey realizes suddenly that she might be hurting him. “Is this okay?” she asks breathlessly, pulling gently. 

“Yeah. I like it,” he says, voice deep next to her ear. 

"I’m about to—-are you—-" he pants out the next time she does it. His breath speeds up as he moves faster, his grip tight, because he realizes she can handle it, since she’s clinging to him just as firmly. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he yells a second later, yanking her down and holding her against him as he starts to come. Rey watches how his face contorts, loving how much this has consumed him, and then he doesn’t ask, he just surges forward to kiss her, tangling his hands in her hair to drag her towards him, the kiss messy and biting. And he’s coming with great shuddering movements underneath her, and it’s really fucking hot watching him come apart like this, because of her, and she’s glad to be the one to give him this feeling. 

And then she realizes immediately that she wants him to be inside her when she comes and she thinks she can, in just—like—one more second—if he keeps doing that, with his thumb rubbing at her. She clenches desperately. Don’t get soft, stay hard for just a little longer she mentally pleads, circling her hips in tight, grinding circles, just please don’t stop—

And then he does, the huge handsome idiot. Ben exhales roughly, letting his hand fall away as he thunks against her wall, looking dazed and half-drunk as he gazes at her— still frantically moving— telling her lazily, "You look so hot.” 

"No, no," she whines, grabbing his hand and shoving his palm against her clit again, hard. “Ben!” 

"Oh shit, sorry,” he says, straightening, blinking at her. “Do you need—"

"Keep fucking doing that," she gasps. "Can you just hang out—keep moving? If you can?" 

He nods fiercely, shoving up his hips as she grinds furiously, and yes, it turns out he can still thrust upward, for at least a little while, but she really needs to fucking come. Now. 

"Can I just—" she puts her hand in her hair and jerks hard, pulling him to her breast. He lets her, but his dark eyes peek up at her from against her chest, confused. "And like—can you—with your mouth?"

“Yeah—uh?”

"Put your mouth on my boobs!” His eyes turn round and eager and then he’s lunging to do what she asks. He licks, tentatively at first but as she moans, he seems to get it, and he starts sucking at her hard, the way she needs, as his hand keeps moving against her clit, his hips still thrusting. 

The tension winds tighter and tighter in Rey, and finally it snaps. Pleasure blankets her, and she’s clinging to every part of him, his sweaty hair, her hands pressed into the muscles of his back. "Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Ben…." She comes with a guttural whine that isn’t probably all that sexy, but she doesn’t care because it feels so good, and he’s looking at her in what seems like amazement. She rocks forward with the force of it, collapsing against him, and one of his big hands comes up to gently catch her. She feels him shift from her breasts to gently mouth at her clavicle and shoulders. 

He’s still rubbing her clit, and she twitches. 

"Ah, too much," she gasps. She grabs his hand and moves it from her clit to her back. 

They stare at each other. It’s silent for a little while.

"Do you feel better?" he says eventually. 

"Um. Yeah." She does. She feels pleasantly drained, like she’s lying in the bottom of an empty pool, blinking up into the sun. 

"Good. I’m glad you don’t have to smash my car windows." 

She snorts, liking the small smile on his face, the first she’s seen. 

"So how was it? Your first time?"

There’s a long pause. He leans forward again, not meeting her eyes, instead talking into her neck. "I felt like I was going to die. But in a good way," he says seriously, kissing her neck gently, in the same spot where she bit him.

She laughs again, leaning back to look at him. "I’m glad." There’s an openness to him now, and she doesn’t want it to go away. It’s almost overwhelming, meeting his eyes, they way he still looks bowled over, and she’s still sitting on his lap, and somehow her hands have moved to idly stroke the back of his hair. "I’ll be right back." 

When she returns from the bathroom, there’s a change. He’s tense, lying on her bed, still naked, hands balled into fists by his side.

"Everything okay?" she says tentatively, sitting down next to him. Should she touch him right now? 

"What if I fucked up the condom?" he says in a horrified tone. 

"Uh—"

"Or it broke and we didn’t notice? I don’t want to have a kid." He stares at her intently, his eyes horror struck at the possibility. She thinks again about how feared he’s been at school. 

"Uh, neither do I. But I’m also on birth control. See?" She holds up her arm and flexes, making the implant jump under her skin. 

"Woah," he says, examining it, raising his hand to lightly trace it. He exhales, sounding relieved. "You’re bionic." 

He goes to the bathroom, and when he gets back, she’s pulling on sweatpants and a sweatshirt. "I’m going on the roof. Do you want to come?" 

"Oh," he says, running his hand through his hair. "Sure." 

She smiles big at him to let him know she didn’t just ask to be nice. She’s glad they haven’t returned to their before-selves. She grabs her Altoid tin and puts it in the pouch of sweatshirt as she watches him pull his clothes back on. (He has such a nice butt she thinks, staring as he bends over to grab his shirt.)

Outside, she steps from the porch railing to the roof, and he watches as she points out where it shakes. 

"It’s not really adhered. Don’t put all your weight on it."

Once they’re up there, he sits close next to her and they look out on the town. 

"I’m not stupid," he says eventually. 

"Uh—" Rey says, looking up from where she’s wrapping a dollar around the rolling paper. 

"I was kicked out before I graduated last year and my parents wouldn’t let me get my GED. They sent me here to live with my uncle to redo my senior year. It’s not because I can’t like, do Econ. I read and shit." 

"What do you like to read?"

"Um. Like Naked Lunch. I really like Get In The Van and Into the Wild. Whatever weird physics of Buddhism books my uncle has around." 

"Your uncle sounds cool," she says, bending to lick the edge of the joint.

"He’s not. He fucking sucks." A burst of the anger she’s used to from him surrounds them for a second. He reaches forward to grab a tree branch that’s blown onto the roof and starts tapping out a pattern, his motions quick and irritated. 

She puts the joint down, sighing. "I didn’t say that earlier because I thought you were dumb. You were just being a dick. And I wanted to say something to get back at you."

He looks sideways at her. "Sorry. I’ve been shitty to you. I’m an asshole sometimes. And I was really mad about moving here. I was so fucking embarrassed." 

"If you were in so much trouble, why’d you do all that shit? Like, I get mad but I keep my head down. Weren’t you worried your parents would freak out even more?"

He laughs, but it’s bitter. "They would never have come down here. I was fully my uncle’s responsibility this year. I could have burned the school down and they would have let him deal with it."

That pisses Rey off, even though she’s the one who’d rubbed his face in it at the beginning of the year. "People shouldn’t—" she wants to say abandon, but she doesn’t necessarily want to put her own shit onto him "—foist their kids on someone else. I mean. No offense to your parents."

He nods slowly, looking down as he sketches expansive patterns with the branch. 

She feels bad again for bringing up his family. Now, and back then. She knows what it’s like to have parents who just get sick of you. "Also. I said some fucked up things too. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything about your family. I can be kind of a cunt sometimes…Also, I’m sorry for getting you wet earlier. That was really immature."

"Do you say that because you’re British?"

"Huh?" 

"Cunt," he says in a hushed tone. 

"Oh. No. I say that because I’m kind of a cunt."

He laughs. 

"Your parents aren’t around, right?"

She shrugs. "Who fucking knows. They dropped me here and took off. Foster care." She waves her hand. 

"Oh. I’m. That—" 

"If you say you’re sorry, I’ll push you off this roof." 

"I was going to say that fucking sucks." 

"It’s okay. My guardian basically just ignores me, which is what I want." She lights the joint and takes a hit, offering it to him.

"No thanks. I don’t—I’m straightedge."

Rey exhales, watching the smoke disappear over the town. "That’s cool." 

"Where are you going to school next year?"

"State." She shrugs. "Eh. I got a full ride and it’ll be cool to live in the city, I guess. What about you?" 

He names a private school 45 minutes from State. "There are a lot of good venues in the city," he says. "I went to a lot of hardcore shows when I lived there." 

"Oh, cool. I'll keep that in mind.” Rey is learning that they probably don’t have similar tastes in music. “It’s going to be different. Sharing a room with someone. All I know is that my roommate's name is Rose. I hope she doesn’t suck." 

"Yeah."

The sun starts sinking down. She tells him about her summer plans, how she and Finn are moving to the city next week to live in a co-op with someone he met at band camp and a handful of others, and she’s transferring to the Starbucks there to make money before school begins. And he tells her how he’s stuck with his uncle for a few more weeks, because he’s fixing up the shed for his uncle to rent out as an Airbnb, but at least he’s getting paid, and then he’ll be back at his parents’ and, most importantly, reunited with his dog—"Do you want to see a picture?"

She taps out the joint and scoots closer. "Hell yeah." He tentatively puts an arm around her, and she likes the solid comfort of it. 

She zooms in on the picture, squealing. And then she looks back up at Ben.

"He’s so big and hairy. Like you."

He takes the phone back and scrunches his face at her (she didn’t know he could be adorable), tightening his arm. She leans against him, enjoying their closeness. 

"Oh. I meant to ask. Why do you already have a LinkedIn?"

"It just seems like a good idea,” she says self consciously. "Like if someone Googled you and wants to contact you. For jobs. Or whatever."

"That’s smart, I guess. My mom is always on me to do shit like that for my future.”

Sometimes, it feels like all Rey does is think about the future. "I’m so ready to leave here. Except for the sunsets. They’re always good." The sunset is now ripping across the sky in a streaky pink and orange palette.

"My uncle says that’s because of the pollution from the refinery."

There’s another pause.

"Also...how did you find my LinkedIn?"

It’s getting dark, but she thinks he might be blushing. "Um. I couldn’t find your Instagram so I Googled you," he mutters. "Then I realized—"

"That my name is spelled with an E?" She’d also looked for his account, but she’s found him the normal way, hunting through follower lists. 

"Yeah."

"I don’t think you follow me."

"I don’t. Are you going to the school thing tonight?"

"No." The school is putting on some late night, ostensibly fun event to keep people from drunk driving on graduation night. You can play arcade games until 5 AM and win prizes. Finn’s friend had told them that the prizes were good. But the tickets were $50 that Rey couldn’t spare. 

"Yeah. It’s lame." 

"I think I’m going to watch this movie Perfect Blue tonight," she says, surprising herself a little, marveling at how she’s gone from wanting to hose him down to wanting to have sex with him to wanting to watch a movie with him. Maybe there is something special about the last day of school. "It’s an anime. One of my favorite movies. If you’re still trying to broaden your horizons." 

"Yeah? That could be cool," he says smiling down at her. 

"It’s on a tiny laptop. You’d have to squint." 

"I can handle it." His face falls. "Oh, wait. I have a dinner thing. My parents are in town." He hesitates. "I feel like I’ve seen them enough today. Maybe—"

"You should go to dinner," she says, bumping his shoulder, thinking about how miserable he’d looked those first weeks of school. "But after?"

"Yeah. Okay. My parents are also driving back tonight, so uh. You could always come to my place to watch it if you don’t want to hang out here when your guardian’s back. I basically live in a glorified shed on my uncle’s property." 

It might be nice, Rey thinks as she looks at Ben’s face, slightly flustered from the invitation, to take advantage of Plutt’s complete disinterest about where she spends her time. It might be very nice. 

"That sounds good," she says, leaning against him for a beat. "We should probably head down. It’s getting pretty dark." 

"Yeah. I have to meet them in 20 minutes." 

He climbs off first, ignoring the wobbly railing, instead dropping neatly down onto the ground on his long legs. 

"Here, just—" he says, gesturing for her to let him catch her. "The wood looked rotted earlier. This thing is going to fall apart." 

Rey lets him fold his arms around her middle, liking the feeling of his arms wrapped around her middle as he eases her down, dragging her down his body. "Are you just doing this so you can touch my butt?"

"What? No. I’m trying to make sure you don’t—"

"Because you can." 

"Oh. Cool," he says, moving one hand to squeeze her as he settles her down on the porch. 

As they walk inside, Rey tells Ben some of the rumors about him. 

"I’ve never even been to Olive Garden," he says, making a face. 

"Don't be a snob," she says, frowning. Some people had never been to Olive Garden. Some people thought unlimited breadsticks sounded really cool. 

"I’m not a snob," he says defensively. "There are just better—in the city there’s a place my dad used to take me, where it’s like $10 for a giant bowl of fettuccine alfredo. The calzones come in cake boxes." 

"You should tell me the name of that place.” They’re at the front door now. 

“If you give me your number, I’ll text it to you.”

“Wow, very smooth. Are you sure you haven’t been doing all those things people say?” She grins up at him, teasing and moving closer. For some reason, he looks shy again, looking down at her, not saying anything. 

Rey keeps talking. “Ugh. I wish I had fettuccine alfredo.” She edges a little closer to him, wrapping a finger in the belt loop of his jeans, and pulling him gently towards her. She looks up at him sadly. "All I have is Kraft. At least I know how to make it good." 

“Um—” he says, rotating and flipping his keys through his long fingers, still seeming strangely nervous. They’ve had sex. Why is this part scary? But she gets it, feels it a little too. Neither of them seem all that comfortable with gentle. Will this delicate thing between them shatter when he steps out of the house?

Maybe. But maybe not, she decides, standing on her tiptoes, putting her palms on either side of the face to drag him closer and kiss him properly. He makes a needy little noise as his hands come up around her back and his tongue licks into her mouth, and she somehow ends up against the wall, his thigh between her legs. 

"Don’t you have dinner soon," she gasps, feeling his keys still in his hand, curled into her hair

"Yep." He releases her, but he stays close, and then dips down to kiss her again. "What’s your number?"

She gives it to him and then pets at his sex-mussed hair, combing her fingers through it. "So your parents don’t realize." 

He raises his hand to smooth her hair, but he just messes it up. She wrinkles her nose at him and he grins at her. Then he kisses her nose, like she’d thought about kissing his. 

“Fuck. I really have to go,” he says, looking at his phone, a text popping up on the screen. “I’ll text you when I’m done and I can pick you up?"

"Sounds good. Have fun.” She waves at him as he walks away. He gets in his car and pulls away, and he waves at her again as he drives off, considerably faster than the speed limit. 

Rey walks into the kitchen, smiling. She puts on a pot of water, and then stares into space for a while, jumping when she realizes the water is boiling. And when the mac and cheese is done, and she’s added enough garlic powder, crumbled Ritz crackers and Crystal to her liking, she takes it to her room. She hits play on a random episode of Avatar and starts eating. A couple minutes later, she feels a buzz in the pouch of her sweatshirt. She pulls out her phone, reading the text from Ben.

<So how do you make Kraft taste good>

Then there’s another:

<Also you gave me a hickey everyone is making fun of me>

Rey curls her legs under her and pulls her hood up around her face as she starts typing, smiling down at the screen, feeling warm and excited and content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ['Cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeeeeeeeling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gfwG9NEitA)
> 
> [interesting and infuriating article about differences in the same high school textbooks across the US](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/12/us/texas-vs-california-history-textbooks.html)
> 
> [ the perfect "crazy high school nites in a claustrophobically small town" song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAX4sckx5l0)
> 
> Other alternate angsty teen boi books contemplated: On the Road, Kafka On the Shore, Clockwork Orange
> 
> [ Occasional tweets here](https://twitter.com/kalx58)


End file.
